ARCADIA, Calif. – A somber week in fire-ravaged Southern California ends Sunday, and it will require more than one day of racing for normalcy to return to Santa Anita.
Due to smoke, Santa Anita postponed its Friday card until next Thursday, Jan. 16. Santa Anita had a five-stakes program for California-breds scheduled for Saturday. The 10-race Sunday card includes the Grade 3 Las Cienegas Stakes for filly and mare turf sprinters.
As of Friday morning, no decision had been announced by Santa Anita regarding the weekend. If the fires are contained and the smoke clears, Sunday racing could provide a welcome diversion.
Turf would be the focus, including a maiden sprint at six furlongs for 3-year-old fillies that was split. In race 1, front-runner No Bad Beats faces Pam and Tina. In race 5, second-time starter Headstrong Ways showed ability in her better-than-looked eighth-place debut. She could be tough.
Ten entered the Las Cienegas, a hillside stakes that is race 9. The field includes comeback stakes winner Laulne; Grade 3 winner Nadette; three-time stakes winner Toupie; stakes winners Hamwood Flier and Miss Lizzy; and stakes-placed Just Nails.
Trainer Phil D’Amato has won the Las Cienegas three of the last four years. He believes Laulne can pick up where she left off winning the Angels Flight for 3-year-old fillies on the hill last April. Following a third-place finish in a Grade 3 on the course in May, Laulne was sidelined.
“She’s set to run, she’s training really good, and she’s already a group stakes winner,” D’Amato said. “I think she’s fit, she’s already won on the hill for me once. She knows the hill.”
Laulne will be ridden by Antonio Fresu, who rode her in the stakes victory last spring and works her. A Group 3 winner in France at age 2, Laulne has won 4 of 9. The Las Cienegas is her first start against older.
Nadette drops in class from an eighth-place finish in the Grade 1 Matriarch. A late-runner, Nadette would benefit by a contested pace.
“The reason we’re running in there is to have pace in front of her. There was no pace in the Matriarch, and she needs pace,” trainer Neil Drysdale said. “She ran in the [Las Cienegas] last year, and she’s better this year.”
Nadette finished fourth in the 2024 Las Cienegas. Now 6, she won the Grade 3 Wilshire last spring at Santa Anita and has won 5 of 25. Drysdale said “she’s going to have a break after this, and then she’ll come back in the summertime.”
Juan Hernandez rides Nadette.
Toupie is a three-time stakes winner based in the East. Graham Motion trains the filly, who won $100,000 Unzip Me Stakes last fall at Santa Anita. Flavien Prat rides Toupie, a 4-for-10 presser.
Just Nails, whose three hillside starts have produced a win and two seconds, finished fourth against males last out at Del Mar. Front-runner Hamwood Flier makes her first start in nearly a year; late-runner Miss Lizzy returns from a three-month break.
Others in the field include Needlepoint, Anywho, Ma Rae’s Girl, and Vitalera.
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